


A Herbologist´s guide to Apocalypse

by AkkiTheWolf



Series: Imagines (or too many k-pop in my brain) [17]
Category: Original Work, Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Blood and Gore, Felix as minor character, Horror, I only borrowed him, Implied Relationships, Monsters, Other, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 03:19:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17841443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkkiTheWolf/pseuds/AkkiTheWolf
Summary: There wasn´t any warning or a grand attempt to save the world. No heroes to rise against the overcoming slaughter. No one to stop the blood-bath. Just panic. Overbearing, loud, breath-taking panic.





	A Herbologist´s guide to Apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

> This is my attempt at a horror. After a very, very long time. Please be kind. 
> 
> I came with all this insanity because I was trying to distract myself. Distract I did. So much that I was dreaming about this for a week straight. Not nice dreams guys, not at all. So as it usually goes inside my head, if I write this down it usually stops bothering me. It did, thankfully. Felix wasn´t so grateful, but it´s his fault to volunteer as a guinea pig for this experiment.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy some human eating monsters.
> 
> Akki out.

              „Night, night, Felix.“ The ceiling had a damp spot and mould started overgrowing its cosy nest in the corner, reaching out into the room. The body near me gave of warmth, just enough to stop the annoying shivers that would keep you up the whole night. It was his night. So maybe I will catch more than four hours of sleep. Or maybe not.

Outside the walls of a rundown apartment in a rundown building darkness was spreading. And they came out.

Gurgling noises, feet dragging too long claws, screeching on the pavement and of course the unforgettable sniffing sounds. Maybe it will be more like two hours tonight.

 

There wasn´t any warning or a grand attempt to save the world. No heroes to rise against the overcoming slaughter. No one to stop the blood-bath. Just panic. Overbearing, loud, breath-taking panic. The whole world froze like a deer in head-lights. Stuck in incomprehensible confusion of _what the heck is happening_?! Those precious seconds the world pondered on what to do cost us the population of Busan, Fukuoka, Vladivostok, then Shanghai, Taipei. Other coastal cities followed, until it spread so far, the counting stopped. Everything stopped, again. The electricity, the water, the people, shivering, hidden away. Only THEY didn´t.

From one of the last Seoul radio broadcasts I heard the word UHC. The United Nations called them like this, the Unidentified Hostile Creatures. That´s pretty much everything they knew about them. The name and their still rising body count. I called them Sniffers.

They came out from the underground. From sewers and tunnels. But I guess they crawled out from the sea, or someone let them out, there was such a theory too, but who cares these days. They preferred dark or so we thought. No one saw them in the daylight. That was the only time we were relatively safe, if you kept out of dark spaces. Once the sun set down...

 

  I didn´t call them Sniffers right from the beginning. That came later, just like the knowledge about them and how to hide from them.

I started out as an assistant teacher at one of the Seoul universities, it doesn´t matter which one anymore. There were thirty-three kids in my class, working on a project, the day world stopped. We lost twelve in the first week. That left us with twenty-one kids, twenty-two including me. I was still a child back then even despite my age, according to the society I was an adult. My dad was right. We grew soft as a generation.

After that first week we finally figured out how they always found us. They sniffed us out. I could see one of them that night. Not just a blur of movement, followed by screaming and a splash of vermillion suddenly painting my cheeks. It, I guess it, we couldn´t see any traits pointing to different genders, so it. It stood still, a mangled sort of limbs, muscles and bones creating something ugly, but entirely too deadly. It had an oval shaped head, a maw full of sharp, pointy teeth, like piranha. But its eyes were a dull sort of grey, corps-like. So how did it track us? There were no ears on the bald skull. The skin was greyish, transparent, with visible veins and musculature, but as I later found out they came in various colours. Like a new model of a phone. What a lovely bonus. As if the creature could hear my panicked brain-rambling, it turned my way. I shrank in the crevice created by two collapsed walls. It cocked its head and sucked in a deep breath. Click! A light-bulb came on in my mind and I whimpered. I wouldn´t have survived if not for two of my students. They drew the creature off. Back came only one.

 

After one month the UN started finally fighting back. With some success. Politics, bureaucracy, paper pushing, religion and fear, but mostly fear, were the main reasons it took so long. They were able to drive the creatures off, stop their progress before they crossed Ural. The Sniffers didn´t like mountains. Harsh terrain, not much food and not many places to hide from the sun if you didn´t want to dig into the stone. The Sniffers had a few weaknesses. It took a lot of time and lives to figure them out. One of them was, they weren´t vey burly. Well, some of them. The lean muscles were meant for fast blitz attacks. Climbing up on a building was no problem for them. If you caught them by surprise and had a weapon, best the sharp kind, they didn´t take well to be poked by bullets, you were able to hack their head off. It didn´t happen very often.

By the end of the month two there was only five of us. We had run-ins with other desperate survivors. But the law of the jungle was true in this time, the stronger wins. Since our numbers decreased so fast, we felt and were quite hopeless. This was the moment when our tides changed.

I thought so. The others not so much. By coincidence our small group found something that made you almost invisible to Sniffers. Valerian root. A medicinal herb used for many purposes, for example curing insomnia. It also has a very distinctive smell. A few drops between the doorways, a few poured over the windowsills and you have a safe space for night. More precisely, for approximately six hours, if the weather is agreeable, then the smell completely evaporates and you are again fair game. This last information cost us another two lives. A young couple, they thought now they can bolt, just the two of them. We found them the next day. What was left of them.

I was tired.

I didn´t try particularly hard to keep up. When we set off to reach Ural, as ultimately it was the crossing point between the hell-scape and the surviving world. I trailed some way behind, the Seoul skyline just behind me. In the end my resignation was what saved my life. We foolishly chose the road following Han-river, hoping to get faster out of the city. As it turns out, Sniffers like open spaces. They run fast and true every time. We couldn´t know they kept hidden in holes dug in the dirt by the roads. The false safety of an empty highway was our undoing. I remember clearly the stink of the whole jug of Valerian root tincture I poured over myself in desperate attempt to stave them. I kept sitting high in a tree where I climbed after my last two companions were torn down like deer by a pack of wolves. Bitter tears were streaming down my face as I was biting into my palm not to make a sound. As it turned out I wanted to live. Oh god, I wanted to live!

 

I sat there till the sunrise. That night, because of that night, I´m still here. Almost four years later.

And finally not alone.

“Noona?“ I caught the soft whisper and gentle rustling of blanket.

“Mmm?“ I turned my head to Felix. Anytime he spoke I got surprised by his base-line voice. It was just impossible to connect with the freckled baby face he still had, even after two years. He grew up. Grew stronger, but angelic features stayed. First when I met him he was a child, barely sixteen. Or should I say saved him. He still gets embarrassed when remembering that night.  Ah, yes,… it was at night.

 

It was an hour after sunset. I was already holed up in another non-descript building, even if at one point it might have been a school once. I heard a scream. And another. And another. I bolted. Something in that voice made me give up my safety. I run through the corridors, clenching my jaw and thinking frantically _Hold on! Hold on! Hold on!_

I barged into a cafeteria, probably. Lots of tables, chairs and rotten smell that can only be old blood and food. There on the other side, under one of the bolted-to-the-ground tables was a shrieking boy, trying to get away from claws of a too big Sniffer. The creature was frustrated. Gurgling, leaking saliva and mucus all around the place. It was trying to scrape the boy out, reaching its hands under the table. The boy was fortunately holding a chair, its legs pointed towards the creature´s waiting maw. I learned one important lesson out in the post-apocalyptic world. Use only weapons you know HOW to use. All the movies where the heroes pick up guns and start shooting their way through the zombie- infested cities are quite frankly bullshit. For one if you had never held a gun in hand you will more probably shoot yourself and alert every monster in your vicinity of your idiotic presence. Also, unless you live in Texas, there are not that many shops with guns and the ammo is destined to run out.

So, the bladed weapons are it. No, not the katana or claymore. Best keep it simple and practical.

I quickly assessed the creature. Noticing strong limbs, sturdy body and a thin and long neck. I run on the tips of my toes, trying not to make any sound, even if they don´t have any external ears, they would still hear me lumbering my way towards them. The creature just reached with its head under the table, too preoccupied to notice a new smell. When I struck with my axe as hard as I could, chopping its neck halfway off.

Thick brown blood splashed the boy´s legs and hands, some drops lazily sliding down his cheeks. I bent to look at him, stretching my hand towards him. He had that frozen-rabbit look.

“Let´s go.“ I hissed. He didn´t move, still gawking at the slayed monster.

“Let´s go!“ I barked and yanked him to me once he grabbed my hand. That screaming will lure all Sniffers from half the block radius at least. As expected, I heard scuffling of claws and gurgling noises one level under us. I run, the boy´s hand firmly in my grasp. I got us into a room. Fortunately, only one door and two windows. The Korean classrooms had that annoying habit of having two entrances. Very unstrategic. Definitely not apocalypse-proof.

I quickly closed the door, yanking my backpack from my shoulders. Unscrewing the bottle, I poured a few drops under the doors, turning and doing the same with the windows. Valerian worked only so much. You also had to be clever about using it and had at least a smidgen of luck.

If not.

Run.

Pray.

Maybe your death will be quick.

 

The boy was frantically looking around, I knew that look. He was going to snap. I heard something. Grabbing the boy, shutting up any kind of sound with my palm slamming to his mouth, I dove us into the corner under the window. Just a few seconds later that something gently rapped on the glass. I stuck a finger before the boy´s face, indicating he better be silent if he wanted to live. I craned my neck into an uncomfortable angle and sure there was a Sniffer glued to our window like an over-grown tree-frog. It was turning its head, as if contemplating. Is there a yummy dinner inside or not? My head snapped towards the door. I thanked every deity that my neck didn´t crack and that the kid didn´t shout. Even muffled the Sniffers could have probably heard him, one never knows with them. And there were at least two behind that door from the amount of gurgling noises. I pressed my palm and consequently the boy closer to me. Trying to convey it will be alright. Just please be quiet.

I gripped my axe tighter, not letting the shadow behind the window from my sight or losing the track of the sounds from behind the door. Eventually the one glued to the building moved away. Probably disappointed he couldn´t find anything in the room. Serves you right sucker, no dinner for you tonight! That didn´t mean the Sniffers left entirely. The thing with smells is, the more you pass through some place the stronger it is. I passed by that door four times. The first when I took a peek what is inside while scavenging the building, second when I holed up inside for the night. The last two times when I decided to play a hero on a suicidal mission. So, the Sniffers knew the food passed by, quite recently actually, we were just lucky they were dumb enough not to investigate why the smell suddenly cut off right by this door. Confused and miffed by the lack of crunchy humans, nothing left for them to do than haunt the corridor for few more hours and then hobble away on their anatomically impossible legs to chow on some other poor fool.

The kid jumped at any closer sound. I was preventively keeping my palm on his mouth, his moist breath tickling my skin. He was still gripping my arm in a vice-like grip. He had some strength, that will bruise. I moved only to reapply the Valerian tincture, dumping more of it near door and windows. There was a lot of Sniffers!

At last the sun rose. We were watching the colours come back as light grew stronger. The dreary grey and black brightening into other shades of spectrum. I realized we were in a former teacher-lounge. We moved half an hour after the last sounds from the outside quietened. Cracking the door open an inch, I peeked into the corridor. It was clear. I looked outside the windows. All clear! I hurriedly packed my things and set out. I wasted a lot of tincture, I needed to replenish it. There was a place not faraway where I can get some Valerian. The boy stumbled after me. I didn´t really mind if he wanted to stick together, but first I need to figure out something.

“Hey, do you speak English?” he looked spaced out a bit.

“Hey,“  I clicked my fingers in front of his face, „do you understand me?“ He nodded and frowned when I lifted a very unimpressed eyebrow.

“Yes, I can understand you.“ The other brow climbed up, joining its sibling. Now that was some voice. I nodded placatingly and started leading our way out. When we were on the first floor the boy wanted to descend the last stairwell, but I halted him. Grabbing his jacket, he yelped. I cringed at the loud noise. You quickly learn to be quiet in this world. He looked at me, surprised. I inclined my head towards the staircase. At the bottom was a space so dark you couldn´t see properly into the corners. When he only blinked, confused, I said something I usually kept in the recesses of my mind only.

I came up with it as an exercise to entertain myself and a means to not get crazy. You´ll do almost anything just so you would stay sane. The world is crazy enough as it is, more insanity would be like adding insult to the injury. And also, rude. The world went bonkers first, why should you follow it, that´s just unoriginal. Maybe I should do those exercises more.

I found a doll one day. Just lying on the pavement, looking all dirty and sad. Abandoned. In a hurry probably, when there was no time to turn around to grab the useless, priceless piece of cloth and fluff, so you could run with your child and maybe, only maybe escape the horror that suddenly crawled from the deepest pits of hell. It was a precious and sorrowful reminder that the youngest ones, the smallest ones, the most important ones were a part of this tragedy too.

“Avoid the darkness,

 Keep in the light,

 The shadows have teeth

 and they like to bite.“

Maybe he understood, maybe not. He didn´t question my strange way of telling him he can´t trust the day implicitly, not anymore. Nodding I checked my mental map and took us the shortest way to the most important place in a post-apocalyptic Seoul. A tea shop.

**Author's Note:**

> I know it´s not perfect, far from it. I know there are plot holes, but I went through it so many times that I already can´t see them even if they were staring right at me with a row of pointy teeth and a grin like a Cheshire cat. So, if you see them, be so kind as to point them out to me. The same goes for my absolutely amazing typos.
> 
> Peace and I hope you enjoyed.  
> AkkiThe Wolf


End file.
